Beheading game

The trope of the beheading game appears in 11 recorded works of medieval literature. Of these, two are Irish, four French, two German, and three English. The trope is believed to have originated in Irish mythology, the mythic cycles of which were subsequently adapted into 12th-century French chivalric romance. From there, the trope was introduced in 13th-century German and 14th-century English poetry.[1] The beheading game itself is adapted from the motif of the Exchange of Blows, in which a stranger propositions a hero with a challenge: the hero may strike a blow upon the stranger, but they agree to have that same blow returned to them the following day.[2] The unwritten folkloric origins of the trope remain unknown, but some philological scholars speculate that the Exchange of Blows derives from an ancient myth in which Summer and Winter do battle at the change of seasons.[1]

In its most basic form, the beheading tale concerns the appearance of a mysterious, possibly supernatural figure who appears at a royal court and proposes a challenge for the members of said court: they may attempt to behead the stranger with an axe, but in doing so, the volunteer agrees to be beheaded at a later point in time. The hero who volunteers to take part in this challenge successfully beheads the stranger, who then retrieves his decapitated head and departs. After the hero spends the resultant waiting period mentally preparing himself for the retributory blow, the stranger returns and either feigns the blow entirely or leaves only a small wound on the hero's neck.[3] The champion is congratulated for succeeding in the true challenge, which is to honour the parameters of the game by submitting himself to certain death.[4] Sometimes the beheading game is expanded into a disenchantment narrative, as in Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle and The Turke and Sir Gawain.[5] In tales such as this, after the initial exchange, the stranger asks the hero to behead him once more, which then frees the challenger of whatever curse has made him monstrous.[6]

Both in the original Celtic mythos and in the later Arthurian romance, literary scholars have described the beheading game as a metaphor for coming of age. For heroes such as Cú Chúlainn and Gawain, the feigned decapitation they face is a symbolic death that allows for them to be reborn.[33] This is taken further in Caradoc's story, as his encounter with his enchanted father is the first knight-errantry he enjoys as a Knight of the Round Table.[18] Both in Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance, beheading was a mechanism by which a hero could pass into adulthood, either through the action of taking an opponent's head, which would cement their status as a warrior, or by subjecting oneself to death through possible decapitation in a beheading game.[34] The Bildungsroman aspects of the beheading game are particularly highlighted in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as rather than returning to Camelot himself, the Green Knight demands that Gawain come to him. The whimsical, carefree world of Camelot at Christmastime is interrupted by a road of trials, during which Gawain develops physically, emotionally, and spiritually while preparing for his death.[35]

The other central theme of the beheading game is that of cultural values. At the end of the narrative, the hero is spared and the blow only feigned, because he fulfilled the contract that was established at the beginning of the game.[36] In this context, some scholars have seen the Gawain-poet as using Gawain's girdle to criticize the emptiness of the Arthurian concept of chivalry. When the Green Knight first arrives at Camelot, he speaks of the honourable reputation that Arthur's knights possess, and proposes the game as a means of testing the merits of that reputation.[37] While Arthurian chivalry emphasises the honourable nature of a sacrificial death, Gawain's decision to behead the Green Knight, which then requires him to fulfill the other side of the contract, is far more foolish than admirable.[38] For Laura Ashe, an English professor at Worcester College, Oxford, the idea that Gawain must travel to the Green Chapel to uphold the chivalric ideals of Camelot, even knowing that it would bring death, demonstrates the foolishness of ideals that preserve honour over life.[39] Additionally, Gawain is criticized for his decision to use the magic girdle that will supposedly preserve his life, demonstrating that he has deemed his life more important than the concepts of honour he is meant to uphold.[40] Literary critic Piero Boitani notes that Gawain is initially presented to the reader as "the perfect representative of the virtues which that society has elevated to principles of life", making his failure to uphold those values at the end of the narrative that much more disturbing.[41]

Analyses of Gawain's failure to complete the quest tend to focus on his concealment of the girdle.[4] Other scholars have noted, however, that Gawain's failure begins simply with his response to the challenge. Unlike other iterations of the beheading game, the Green Knight does not specify that he must be decapitated, only that whatever blow is done to him will be returned. Ashe suggests that the holly branch the Green Knight carries in his other hand was a test, and that he wished for a clever knight to strike him with the branch rather than the axe.[42] Victoria L. Weiss of Lehigh University goes so far as to deem the initial beheading scene "Gawain's first failure", criticizing the hero for making the impulsive decision to strike a fatal blow when at no point did the challenger specify that the game required a beheading.[43]

The tone of the beheading game becomes darker with adaptation, and the magical elements are altered. In Malory, for instance, severed heads do not speak, creating an air of finality in the action that is only subverted when the challenger reattaches his head.[44] This is mostly due to the differing connotations around beheading in Celtic and medieval English culture. For instance, the Celts believed that decapitation was an honourable form of execution for a foe who had fought valiantly, while for the English, beheading was a punishment reserved for traitors.[45] The magical nature of the head as the container of human power is also not present in the medieval English as it is in Celtic belief,[46] making the Green Knight a sort of pagan figure in a Christian world where death, particularly decapitation, is final.[47] Elizabeth Scala, a medievalist with the University of Texas at Austin, has used this different tone to explain why Gawain makes the decision to behead the Green Knight. Whereas an Irish hero like Cú Chúlainn has enough experience with the supernatural to believe that his opponent will survive what should have been a fatal blow, Gawain has no reason to believe such a thing, and he is not faced with the gravity of his decision until the Green Knight retrieves his severed head.[48]

Within the categories of play described by Johan Huizinga in his Homo Ludens, the beheading game would serve as a type of single combat belonging to archaic culture.[49] This single combat is complicated into a godgame, a type of game in which one character, the gamemaster, entraps his opponent in a secretive strategy that falls beyond the simple pretenses of the game.[50]

The beheading game has found its way into contemporary culture by means of direct adaptations of the myths from which it originates. W. B. Yeats, for instance, adapted Cú Chulainn's experience into a play first titled The Golden Helmet and later rewritten in 1910 as The Green Helmet.[51] In Yeats's iteration, the Red Man returns the year after he is beheaded to demand a head of his own, and Cú Chulainn bravely offers his own head in sacrifice.[52] The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, meanwhile, has been adapted several times, most recently in David Lowery's 2021 film The Green Knight, which stars Dev Patel as Gawain and Ralph Ineson as the Green Knight.[53]

Outside of Britain and Ireland, the closest analogue for the beheading game is found in the Icelandic Sveins rímur Múkssonar.[54] In this work, an ogre named the Grey Carle appears at the court of the King of the Greeks and individually challenges all those present to a beheading game. When the hero Sveinn obliges, the Grey Carle picks up and reattaches his severed head, informing Sveinn that he will return the next day.[55] It is believed that the beheading game of the Fled Bricrenn came to Iceland through an English intermediary that is now lost.[56]

Christopher Wrigley has compared the Ugandan myth of the Snake and the Tortoise to the beheading game. In the myth, Wa-nfudu the tortoise tricks Bemba Omusota, the despotic snake ruler, into beheading himself by claiming that tortoises cut their heads off every night, which he demonstrates by retracting into his shell. Once Bemba and his soldiers are dispatched, Kintu becomes king.[57] For Wrigley, both the European beheading game and the Bemba story use the fear of beheading as a metaphor for circumcision, and the liberation enjoyed by the Ganda once they are freed of Bemba's rule parallels the relief that heroes like Gawain experience once they subject themselves to beheading.[58]